'Pirates' Face Off Against Whalers As Japan Vows To Keep Hunting

On Monday anti-whaling
protestors — known as Sea Shepherds — successfully clocked a
Japanese whaling ship from refueling in Australian waters near
Antarctica.Australia
Broadcasting Newtwork

Clashes between Japanese whalers and with anti-whaling 'pirates'
continued as Japan's new fisheries minister
told Agence France-Pressethe island country will never
stop hunting and eating whales.

"I don't think there will be any kind of an end for whaling
by Japan," Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshimasa
Hayashi. "We have never said everybody should eat whale,
but we have a long tradition and culture of
whaling."

Hayashi called
anti-whaling protests "a cultural attack, a kind
of prejudice against Japanese culture" asThe
Associated Press reportedthatAmerica's largest federal
court deemed the to be "pirates"because of the violent
nature of their some of the tactics.

From the
AP:

"You don't
need a peg leg or an eye patch," Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote
for the unanimous three-judge panel. "When you ram ships;
hurl glass
containers of acid; drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water
to damage propellers and rudders;
launch smoke bombs and flares with hooks; and point
high-powered lasers at other ships, you are, without a
doubt, a pirate, no matter how high-minded you believe your
purpose to be."

For the last few years the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society — a Washington state-based nonprofit —
has chased Japanese 'scientific whaling' fleet off
Antarctica for several years to prevent the mammals being
slaughtered.

AFP notes that unlike Norway and Iceland — which openly flout the
International 1986 moratorium on
commercial whaling — Japan justifies its hunts through a
loophole that allows for lethal scientific research.